All-Ireland Findal countdownIan O'Riordan finds Mickey Harte and Jack O'Connor the picture of calm and quiet confidence with six days to go

When it's six days before the All-Ireland football final there's not much either manager will give away beyond "here we are now, and let's just see". So when Jack O'Connor sat down alongside Mickey Harte at the Bank of Ireland centre in Dublin yesterday all we really got was the known contrasts between Kerry and Tyrone coming into sharper focus.

Like the tradition - Kerry's 52nd final, Tyrone's fourth. Or the perception - Kerry's style, Tyrone's substance. And even the motivation - just think 2003. But the most telling contrast this summer was their paths to Sunday's final - Kerry's five games, Tyrone's nine.

O'Connor and Harte couldn't have been less contrasting, both a picture of calm and quiet confidence. Yet with Tyrone having almost twice as much mileage on the clock as Kerry it was Harte who endured the closer inspection.

Can they match Kerry for freshness, for scoring potential - and what about tradition?

"I suppose we could have got there with five games as well," admitted Harte. "But any route to an All-Ireland is a very acceptable route. It's three weeks now since our semi-final, and that seems like a long time for us because for most of the summer we didn't have that luxury. But our training has always been geared towards freshness. We only train collectively two nights a week, but that's not to say it's the only contribution of the players because they do a lot more on their own.

"Our resolve has been well tested, though, especially after the two Ulster finals with Armagh. I think that asked a lot of the players. And then at half time in the Dublin match I think there were more questions asked about the team, and they responded with a lot of resolve."

Harte wasn't overly enamoured of the talk of tradition - and if the recent version counts for anything then Tyrone's smothering of Kerry in 2003 should be the starting point: "Tradition will always be important for any county or club. It's nice to know what you've achieved before, and Kerry have achieved a lot. Tyrone's experience is very modest compared to Kerry, but in recent years we have been successful, and that has given the current group of players the belief that they can win things, and that's just as important.

"But what happened in 2003 is history now. New history will be written on Sunday, and Kerry want to write it as much as we do. There's the real challenge."

Kerry's five games this summer have only been remarkable for the ease with which they ultimately won. There's a danger in that too, admitted O'Connor: "Maybe it was a bit easier on my heart than it was for Mickey's, because he did have a few tight calls. I would possibly take the more direct route, but that's one of the great debates at the moment, and if the extra matches will actually help Tyrone. But we're fresh, have had a nice build-up, and feel we're in a good shape."

For both managers this week is effectively a waiting game. Harte will announce his team on Thursday, and O'Connor will unveil his tonight. Not that the teams aren't known to them already. Tyrone have a full deck to choose from (Enda McGinley is fully recovered from a thigh strain), and the main question there is whether Peter Canavan will start (the word is he will).

O'Connor hasn't been afraid to pick players on form and the word there is either Mike Frank Russell or Dara Ó Cinnéide will return to the starting line-up in place of Bryan Sheehan. "That's the part you least enjoy," said O'Connor. "It's great telling a player he's starting, it's very hard to tell him he's not."

And the Kerry manager didn't sound obsessed about picking a team that would best suit Tyrone's style of play - or even trying to match that style of play: "A lot depends on weather conditions and things like that. But Croke Park is such a big pitch that it doesn't always matter how many men you decide to play back or whatever. But I've always tried to get my teams trying to play a similar way, and it's all about working hard, even when you don't have the ball. I don't use terms like men behind the ball, or blanket defence. Never in my life.

"Maybe we set out to find that type of player, and maybe someone like Paul Galvin is the kind I'm talking about. He mightn't fit into everyone's idea of the Kerry forward, but to me he's the prototype of the modern wing forward, can run back or forward, and kick points too."

Again Harte faced the closer inspection when it came to talk of style - as if the northern exponents of the game were somehow operating under a different set of rules. "Some people have a particular view of how the game is best played," he said, "and we're all guilty of that at times. Some people believe a good game must have lots of scores, and lots of good fielding. I think there's a lot more in the game now, especially a lot of high quality defending. It's not a finished product, and will change again, and go in other directions.

"But I don't see this great divide between Ulster football and the south. That's overused and abused a bit. It shouldn't matter where Tyrone and Armagh are positioned in Ireland.

"We do what we believe in with the panel we have at our disposal. So maybe we should leave the North-South thing behind us."

And yet after Sunday it may be more defined than ever.